Search This Blog

Controlling the imps!

Am posting this sitting at a very large retail event in Delhi, pretty exasperated at the phenomena we might casually call 'imps'.

We all know how keen a PR professional's instinct needs to be to spot the journalist from a distance - the eye becomes trained by continuous habit and need. Many times, 15 minutes into the scheduled beginning of the press conference or event, the lack of media attendance can cause a small panic attack in PR professionals. So naturally, while one mans the media counter, the PR professional's eye is continuously scouting for the elusive journalist. That constitutes the training by habit part.

Another reason that futher helps develop the 'spotting instinct' is because the PR professional is continuously getting thrown into new situations (like new cities for instance), and made to manage media events in places where they hardly know the media. Here, the hardy professional learns to recognize gestures & demeanor, walking styles, confidence, attire, accoutrements that help identification of the journalist. Over a period of time, this process of journalist 'tagging' becomes second nature to everyone in PR.

But lets move back to where we started. The imps! Imp, short for impersonator of the media, is a strange creature. They dont do stories, they dont do interviews and they dont work for any media. But, they can talk as if they are the media and most of their day goes in doing the rounds collecting invitations for major events in the city. Typically the imps claim to be freelancers (please read as F-R-E-E-L-O-A-D-E-R-S) or from the PIB (Press Information Bureau) and usually will not carry visiting cards. But almost everytime they will all have an official looking identity card that helps them pass off as press. Why do they do it? Well, as freeloaders, imps typically looking for conference freebees and free lunches.

You resist their entry into their event and they will try and create a hue & cry about how the fourth estate represents the voice of the people and by curbing their entry, the the freedom of speech of the nation is being threatened. So, you let go, you give in and you settle for a compromise, in the interests of an uninterrupted event. OK, you say, have your free lunch, but stop making a scene!

But, though the dangers of such allownaces may not be noticed, its almost certainly effect lessens the efficacy of the agency, adds unnecessary cost to the client, and to top it all, the genuine journalists fraternity (the good lot which gets impersonated) feels miffed at this transgression.

What to do about it? Well, my opinon is that it's similar to the software piracy problem. The software product company cannot go hard on the pirated software users, but conitnue to make louder and louder noise about the fact things are getting noticed. Once in a while an example is set, with an objective to send out the message that it wont be tolerated. Another method is to ensure a stricter code in the fraternity, a tag of 'genuine' which the PR agencies and the media should sit together and create to get rid of this menace in the long run.

And also to continue the analogy, like pirated software, the imps are never going to go away completely, but given the time and the right approach, the problem can be minimized for the entire industry.

Comments

I know exactly what you mean! I have doing my share of shooing away a few imps myself.The problem is magnified when imps turn into chimps & start making a nuisance of themselves & jeopardising the client's event. I guess that is where we have to exercise restraint. An observation : the imp phenomenon is not limted to the NCR but is universal.

Popular Posts

Recently, I interviewed a young journalist wanting to turn to public relations as a profession and I asked her two questions. The first, why she joined journalism received an appropriate, though expected answer - 'To give a voice to those who cannot speak for themselves', followed quickly by 'It is perhaps the only profession in which you can be fearless and work towards correcting the wrongs you see in society.'

I gave her a smile, and lodged my second question. 'Why then do you want to shift to Public Relations?' She remorsefully replied, 'I'm disillusioned.'

That conversation, in a nutshell, sums up most of mainstream journalism today. Viewed from the outside, most see a brave, determined journalist standing up for the truth, upholding the 4D principles above all - Detect, Discern, Doubt and Demand. When seen from the inside, most journalists have experienced persuasion - bordering on mild coercion disguised as 'advice', management encou…

If there's a commodity that perishes as swiftly as it is created, it is news. The longer it takes to create, the higher its longevity and by corollary, news produced by the second, dies by the second.

We want our gratifications without any waiting period, we want to gulp down our food, build instant abs, get rich immediately and also know everything now. We are also anxious to know more and more, and information has become a status-according social currency.Fortunately, acquisition of knowledge does not have a finish line and so it behaves quite differently from instant abs or instant noodles.

In this hurried age, magazines play an important role by balancing societal myopia with perspective; need-for-speed with understanding, and anxiety with patience. The magazines analyze and opine like the elders of society - and hence also play the role of elders in the information society. In an age when every new opinion becomes news, magazines bring perspective through considered informat…

(also appeared in Firstpost) The recent Tata boardroom spat has
spawned many faceted discussions, and one of these has been on the appointment
and role Independent Directors – an aspect that not only concerns governance,
but also Board room expertise. Like many, I spent a considerable amount of time
wondering what the boardroom discussions would be like, extrapolating from the
little information that was available. To emphasize the need for expertise in the board, the rules
for appointment of independent directors of a board under the MCA Act require
the independent director to possess appropriate skills, experience and knowledge in one or more fields of finance,
law, management, sales, marketing, administration, research, corporate
governance, technical operations or other disciplines related to the company's
business. It is quite clear that expertise (and not just experience) is one
of the necessary qualities of the board. The question that kept coming back to
me was whether it …